LIMA, Peru (AP) – President Alejandro Toledo declared a state of emergency in a remote highland province late Saturday after gunmen demanding his resignation seized control of a police station there and took several officers hostage, authorities said.

The attackers, led by a former retired army major who’s gained a reputation as a firebrand nationalist, vowed to remain inside the station in Andahuaylas, 275 miles southeast of Lima, until the unpopular Toledo steps down.

“This is a military protest and we are willing to lay down our arms and surrender when Toledo resigns,” Antauro Humala told Radioprogramas Radio from the captured police station.

He said dozens of his gunmen attacked the station early Saturday, wresting control of the building after a shootout with police. Hospital officials told the Radioprogramas that they treated five police officers and two men suspected of being Humala followers, for gunshot wounds.

National Police chief Felix Murazo said attackers were holding 10 officers hostage and that he has sent reinforcements to restore order.

Toledo, whose popularity has plummeted in opinion polls, cut short a holiday vacation and returned to the capital where he issued a 30-day emergency decree, which suspends some constitutional rights such as freedom of assembly.

Humala is the brother of Lt. Col. Ollanta Humala, an army commander who was forced to retire last week.

In October 2000, the brothers led 50 followers in a short-lived military uprising, a month before the collapse of former President Alberto Fujimori’s corruption-ridden regime. Antauro Humala had been forced to retire from the army three years earlier. A few months later, Peru’s Congress granted amnesty to the brothers.

Antauro Humala has since developed a small but vocal political movement that has accused Toledo of selling out Peru to business interests in Chile, a historic rival.

Toledo, who took office in July 2001 with popularity of nearly 60 percent, has tried to disassociate himself from a series of corruption scandals this year involving relatives and members of his Cabinet. His approval rating hovers around 9 percent.

Prime Minister Carlos Ferrero said Antauro Humala and fewer than 100 followers, most of them army reservists, launched their attack after police refused to sell them weapons.

He dismissed Humala’s followers as fringe subversives. “This is an isolated act that, of course, is going to fail,” Ferrero told CPN radio. “Nobody supports these violent acts.”

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